Abstract
To study and analyze the housing access of a community, as a basic human need, in the process of urban planning and policy-making is a critical endeavor. Housing is not entirely an individual area of decision-making as it affects and is affected by the social and political relations of societies, and hence is considered as a social issue and part of social services besides being a matter of public policy-making. Hence, the intervention of states in housing planning is one of the necessities of public administration. Access to housing in a society is a popular goal that its achievement could be challenged by disregarding the social status of housing and the lack of systematic approach in housing planning processes. This would result in spatial (i.e., multidimensional, including economic, social, physical, dimensions) inequality. Tehran, the capital of the country that has densely contained various social, economic and political activities, is a complex urban system, which its complexity makes it more vulnerable when confronting deficiencies in policy-making and having an unsystematic planning approach. Due to the intense, accelerated, unplanned and migratory growth of Tehran and its surroundings environment, the severe inequality is more evident compared to the other cities of Iran. Such inequality has taken settlement forms has resulted in the growth of urban-peripheral settlement (or the informal settlements). The existence and continuity of such a problematic situation has affected negatively the access of a significant part of the population in Tehran to housing. The underlying question of this paper, is, “based on the price of housing, what is the status of the duality of spatial equality-inequality in the housing system of Tehran, and how the trends has changed over a 26-year period of 1991 to 2016?” To achieve the set purpose of this paper, a dual descriptive-analytical path has been designed for, and subsequently implemented in the first path of this paper. The first path involves describing both the characteristics of spatial inequality and the housing system of cities in general, as well as tracing the different approaches to spatial inequality worldwide. Then we define the technical framework of this paper, which studies and compares the methods and techniques that has been used to analyze spatial inequality, worldwide. In the second path we measured the spatial inequality of the housing system of Tehran during the 26-year time period. The output of the measurement of spatial inequality in the housing system of Tehran has been discussed by relating it to the output of the theoretical discussion as done on the first path. The analysis of spatial inequality in the housing system of Tehran was based on the indicator of housing price, as an indicator that represents the overall and total values of the objective and subjective value system of housing. This shows the severe spatial inequality that exists in the housing system of Tehran in the studied period (i.e., from 1991 to 2016). Moreover, during the period, spatial inequality in the housing system of Tehran experienced an increasing trend. The massive growth of house price over the studied period, which rests in the framework of market mechanism in Tehran, has led to the accentuation of the capitalist aspect of housing, itself exacerbating inequality among owners and non-owners. The severe increase in prices has caused the population living in the vast inner areas of Tehran (almost within southern parts of the city) to face the unavoidable problem of inequality and the unequal situation, extenuated by the political and socio-economic inequalities which has created the spatial inequality.
